Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來(lái)酒館. This is another episode of one of your favorite segments【詞源考古研究所】. In English we call it【It means what? 】

Yeeee~

Stop making weird noises. Hi, 安瀾.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone. And never.

All right. So in this segment, 安瀾 slightly deranged and I will get to the bottom of some everyday phrases or words and share with you some of the interesting origin stories.

安瀾, what is the word or phrase for today?

Today we're gonna look at the word Hocus Pocus.

I wouldn't call this every day, but you do hear it.

Yes.

It has something that it was magic. Right?

It does, but it also has something to do with sort of nonsense. If you say that's a lot of hocus pocus, then you're saying it's related to magic, but it's nonsense. It's not scientific.

You sound like a housewife in one of these old movies. It’s all hocus pocus.

Oh yeah. So It's associated with magicians, but in particular, tricksters.

What is the difference between magicians and tricksters?

A magician is somebody who does magic for entertainment, and they do it basically, for good reasons, they do it as a form of entertainment as fun;

A trickster is doing it because they want your money or they want something from you.

Oh like conman or scammers, 這就是像那種詐騙的騙子.

Last time I heard the word trickster is referring to Trickster gods, like Loki.

就是在很多的 mythology, 在很多的神話里面, 也講到很多宗教都會(huì)有所謂的Trickster god, they are like the naughty gods or demigods that just play tricks on humans.

Oh Yeah. That happens quite a lot in mythology around the world, pretty much most mythologies have a trickster.

So how is that related to hocus pocus?

Well, the main theory is that it comes from the Latin phrase "Hoc est corpus meum".

Show off! What does that mean? Hoc est corpus meum. Can I guess, I know “est” is like “is”, yes;

“corpus” I know “corpus” means “body”, yes;

because you know like corporal, corporeal, corpse...so is body. And I'm lost.

“Hoc” means “this”, “est” “ is”, “corpus” “body”, “meum” “my”.

This is my body.

This is my body.

這是我的身體直譯.

So what does that mean?

This comes from the Roman Catholic Mass.

就是天主教彌撒. Okay.Okay

So it's the Latin phrase that is used in a particularly important religious ritual, which is? it's called Communion.

這個(gè)Communion在天主教里面好像叫圣餐, 圣體,圣事, basically they believe the... it's like a biscuit thing.

It's a what's known as a communion wafer.

A wafer. It's like a very thin biscuit thing that's supposed to be the body of God.

Yeah. It's the body of Christ.

Yeah, the body of Christ就是耶穌的身體. And also they drink something that's supposed to be the Christ's blood.

Wine.

Actual wine?

Actual wine.

Ok. So this is for everyone.

Yeah, this is for people who want to take Communion. And You see it so many times in films, for example, where people are kind of eating a wafer and they're drinking wine and that is to symbolize that they are taking in god, they're taking in Jesus.

And this sentence is spoken Hoc est corpus meum. It's basically almost like Christ telling people that this is his body.

Oh this is the priests saying it on Christ behalf .

Yeah, on Christ behalf. I see. But how is that related to magic?

Well, some believe that magicians use the phrase as an attempt to mimic this mysterious language, to copy it, because you have to think that back then, particularly in the Catholic religion, most, if not all services, were done in Latin and people didn't understand Latin.

So for them, it was a mysterious language.

It was a mysterious holy language.

So conmen, tricksters and magicians would use this phrase as a way of conning people to pretend that always exactly the same as what you hear in church.

Having said that, do you know that in a lot of these western horror films, when they're doing the spells, incantations and then as a Chinese audience when we watch it, oh sinister, that sounds really mysterious, what is that mysterious language? Sometimes it's just like pretend Latin, not real Latin, pig Latin (Pig Latin：這是一種兒童游戲語(yǔ)言，通過(guò)將英語(yǔ)單詞的輔音移到詞尾并加上“ay”來(lái)制造一種“假英語(yǔ)”，與拉丁語(yǔ)無(wú)關(guān)).

Oh exactly, think about Harry Potter. Pretty much all of the spells are Latin.

And also most of their professors names comes from Latin roots.

Oh yeah, JK Rowling did study Latin.

And JK Rowling had a great time, I believe, inventing those names, creating those names.

Oh Yeah.

I think we actually did an episode on that.

Yes.

So if you're interested check out Harry Potter or Latin and I think you can find that episode. Yeah

So coming back to this, now I get it. These magicians were tricksters, they were trying to use Latin or pretend Latin, because they were banking on people not understanding it anyway.

That's pretty much it. So they probably would have heard it. And they would somewhat recognize it from church, but because they couldn't speak Latin, it became simplified into hocus pocus.

Hocus ?

Hoc est corpus meum, hocus pocus.

Because it sounds more English-y, English like.

Oh no, it's just mis-heard. You know it's the same as if you're hearing something in a completely foreign language, you're probably going to try to simplify it. You're probably going to corrupt it a little bit.

But how did it come into use? Like when for example.

When it came into use in the 17th century, particularly around stage magic and performances, so this was also the time of the reformation as well. So when lots of northern Europe, particularly England, Scotland, they became Protestant and they didn't like the Catholic religion. So it could also be that they were making fun of Catholicism.

I see宗教改革的時(shí)候, 他們就拿這個(gè)宗教開(kāi)玩笑.

I've seen it used in the context of almost like a spell, they say hocus pocus.

Yeah. Or it's used as a way of just saying that's a lot of rubbish.

So for example it’s like that Lulu what are you saying that sounds like a lot of hocus pocus.

Yeah, It's a way of making fun of people who are seen as a bit gullible.

就什么神神叨叨的, 你在說(shuō), hocus pocus.

You talk about gullible, easy to be tricked. Do you think you are gullible?

I would love to say that I am not gullible, but in my experience, people that say I'm not gullible, are usually gullible.

I'm never gonna fall for any tricks and they're the first one to fall.

Exactly.

So if you're gullible, watch out for the hocus pocus, yes.

Leave us a comment in the comment section if you have anything to say about hocus pocus and also put in your request for any more words or phrases that you want us to talk about in this segment.

So until next time.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.